Look Down, It's All In Your Mind
by TheDreamThief12
Summary: It starts with a dragon on a mysterious quest, and a village in flames. There's only two survivors: a boy who's trying very hard to marry a girl who hates him, and a woman who gave up on anything making sense a long time ago. They're going to kill the dragon, of course. For vengeance...but that's only the beginning.
1. Prologue

It began, as most things seem to do, with a loud noise.

The sound alone was almost enough to kill you—so loud that it seemed to take on a life of its own, shattering glass and dragging furniture into the streets through doors involuntarily flinging open in protest.

Even the dragon winced and then puffed a long drag of smoke out of her nostrils, waiting for the ringing in her ears to subside. Being young (draconically speaking) and somewhat lacking in what might be called classical education, she had entirely failed to anticipate the effect of shrieking at full blast in a small town enclosed by a canyon.

Well, dammit, this was supposed to be her moment. She wasn't going to back off now just because of a bit of temporary deafness. Her chest expanded like the bellows in a forge, and flame snarled between her teeth, so hot it was almost liquid. She breathed out, and the last thoughts of many of the residents of Little Canyon Village was that yes, perhaps the wife had been right after all, and the non-flammability of stone would have outweighed the economic practicality of wood, mud and straw. Light flashed.

Later on people would say that there were only two survivors. Of course, people are flawed creatures, and mistakes are easily made, particularly when there wasn't even a list handy of things who were supposed to be alive there in the first place. Like most villages of its kind, Little Canyon was grown, not built. There was a river nearby and some reasonably fertile land, so humans had started farms there. Eventually those humans came to realize that they needed a place to meet, and to trade, to run to in case of bandit attack, have their horses' shoes fixed and above all else they needed a place to drink. Drinking alone had its merits, mind you, but do it too often and even the sheep started giving you pitiful glances, and drinking with the spouse or kids got awkward rather quickly. So after brief discussion, it was decided to put all those places in the same spot. Thus was Little Canyon born, as people decided that they liked village life more than farm life. At least there were no sheep coughing politely into their fleece as you walked past with a bottle of whisky more fit to scrape paint off walls than to be drunk.

So nobody could _exactly _say that everyone but two died, and certainly some other things did live, including several hundred rats and most of a herd of goats that held the providence of grazing next to a dam. As for people, though, who can say? The Maker seems to delight in droll chance, so perhaps a few more managed to stumble through the wreckage and into the wilds of Fereldan. But they probably weren't all that important anyway.

* * *

><p>His name was Corin, he was sixteen, and that seemed to him to be no age to die. Earlier that morning he had spent a long hour successfully persuading his parents to let him court a certain girl, and then another few painful hours persuading <em>her <em>parents. He had tactfully not mentioned that the girl in question loathed him, and would not tolerate five minutes of his company. It was probably the thing he liked most about her. Pretty girls deserved self-respect and high standards.

* * *

><p>Her name was Vasilia, she was forty-nine, and that did not seem to her to be much of an age to die either. Earlier that morning she had been tending to the broken arm of a young boy who'd fallen off her father's horse. He had squirmed and whimpered the entire time, and it wasn't just because of his pain.<p>

* * *

><p>The third sentient creature to leave the ruins unharmed was, of course, the dragon. If she had a name, no-one knew it but her, and she was probably about a hundred years old. Earlier that morning she had been told to burn a village and kill everyone in it, and this she had tried to do. She was looking for many things, but above all else she was searching for a home.<p> 


	2. Corin

His feet felt as though they'd had the flesh whipped off them and his mouth tasted of blood and ashes.

Corin sat up and immediately wished he hadn't. The world dipped and plunged before the painful blue of the sky burned his thoughts away. A dark speck circled beneath the sun, and vanished into the horizon's glare.

He began to cough and he doubled over, hacking up bitter black slime onto the scorched stone that marked what remained of the chimney. His throat felt swollen and raw, his tongue fat and unresponsive in his mouth.

_What happened? _he didn't say, and straightened up. The chimney stones had shattered around him-that, he remembered. Before that, someone had screamed a word, a word so impossible that everyone indoors had chosen to collectively swat it from their conscious thoughts like a particularly annoying mosquito. Dragons existed, somewhere out in the crags of Thedas, but they did not exist _here, _where the closest thing to a mountain was the ancient barrow that was, quite naturally, haunted. Then there had been the sound of the sky tearing itself apart, soft thunderclaps beating on gusts of wind, and a shadow falling across a village under a bright blue sky at noon. Then came the next scream, and no human could have made that sound-like a banshee, like dragging a piece of glass across slate, like the high wind gained sentience. It had broken the windows. Then came the heat and the light and the end of the world.

Slowly, Corin climbed to his feet and yowled pitifully as they decided to simultaneously air their complaints, perhaps feeling that a joint plaintiff action was necessary. He leaned against one of the fragments of wall that still remained and noticed a curious odor in the air. No, two odors. He remembered when he was very young, and along with his friends had decided to try and roast a rabbit on a stick, like the Chasind did in the stories. They hadn't skinned it, and before too long the smell of burning fur had caught the attention of a neighbor, who had assumed (not unreasonably) that they were attempting to cook one of the village cats. Corin rubbed his head and tried to think of why he was remembering that. Flakes of his previously dark blond hair crumbled through his fingers. The second smell was one he didn't have to reach back through memory to identify...burned flesh is omnipresent in a village where most of the residents still cook using pits and spits.

Feeling as though his head was lighter than air, he reached for his foot and again experienced the unusual sensation of watching part of his body crumble away to dust-three toes on his left foot. Oddly, this didn't hurt at all, though the seared red flesh elsewhere screamed as he ran a finger over it. His throat hurt too much to cry out. Instead, he dropped back to his knees and began to crawl through the scattered piles of ash and stone until his hands touched the compacted dirt of the roads. He looked up and around.

It looked like he'd opened a door into another world, one filled with piles of dark soot pierced by thorns of stone and charred wood, some still glowing and smoking with their own heat. Beyond them swayed a cool mist of green; dimly, he could hear birdsong. Corin couldn't comprehend it. His mind was still occupying a time period of a few hours ago, and it was struggling to bridge the gap between the urbane world he'd been in to the small wasteland he was in now. _This isn't real. This sort of thing doesn't happen, ergo it's not happening. I just have to sit here and I'm going to be woken up. _Movement caught the corner of his eye. A crow was perched on a rock with something red and glutinous in its beak. It tipped its head back and swallowed, one eye on him, and Corin found he had enough voice to scream after all.

"_Mother! Father!" _he cried hoarsely, his eyes beginning to burn. Thin and weak though it was, his voice nevertheless bounced off the walls of the shallow canyon. "_Mum! Dad!" _He wanted this to _stop; _he wanted the neighbor to storm out and tell him he was far too old to be yelling for his parents. He wanted Marri to call him a baby and roll her eyes at her friends. He wanted...anything but this.

"Shut _up, _boy! Do you want that dragon to come back?"

The voice was sharp and rang with authority; some inner part of him wanted to instantly stand to attention. He turned his head very slowly and carefully, hoping his ears were deceiving him. No such luck. _Of all the people who could have lived, doesn't it just have to be the witch, _he thought dully.

Her skin was pale and her eyes cat-green with an evil glint within them that reminded him of the crow's stare. Wrinkles slashed her face and brow. Strands of brown and grey hair snarled around her head, and she carried herself like an exiled queen. Those mad eyes noticed him staring, and the corner of her mouth creased further-in a half-smile or frown, he couldn't tell.

"Yes, yes, dearie me, an old lady, what a horrible sight," Vasilia said. "I don't like it either, trust me. How did you survive?"

Corin cleared his throat, winced, and tried to speak. A thin cawing noise came out of his mouth, but nothing more. He pointed to the pile of chimney stones with a trembling finger.

She crooked an eyebrow. "The Maker smiled on you," she said, seemingly impressed. Then she looked down and saw his feet. "Well, he nodded approvingly, anyway. I suppose I'll have to sort you out. Come on, you can lean on me if you can't walk."

Corin shook his head. "Parents..." he wheezed and clutched at his throat.

"They're dead. They're dust. You realize that, don't you? Their ashes are probably stuck to your feet. Along with the rest of this village." She grabbed at his arm, ignoring his groan of pain, and began to drag him down the street. He had no strength to fight her, and no other plan in any case. He limped alongside her and tried to remember what he knew about Vasilia, the almost-but-not-quite elder of the village. Little Canyon wasn't old enough for the residents to develop the gerontocracy that often ruled in these types of communities; the old people were currently strewn on the nearby farms. Hence Vasilia, although she was neither liked nor trusted, held a kind of sway. In short, she was a bully, fond of tormenting other people for no other reason than that nobody was brave enough to stop her, jaded as they were by the memories of cruel teachers and vicious mothers-in-laws. Corin's mother had said she was a witch, but Corin's father had always maintained that no, she just knew a little of the herb arts, and pretended to know more in order to keep children out of her gardens. The trouble was that she was necessary. There were no priests or healers in the village, but that didn't stop children from falling off roofs or dogs biting the hand that may or may not have been attempting to feed them.

Lost in his thoughts, it took Corin a while to realize that the woman wasn't taking him to her house, but was instead leading him out of the canyon and into the green of the forest. He felt cool grass under his toes and a gentle breeze on his cheek. He breathed in, and savored the air untainted by the reek of burnt flesh. The ground beneath his feet became soft and squishy, and they drew to a halt on the edge of the river. He dropped to his knees and drank, wincing as the cold water seared his throat, but his shoulders lowered as the worst of the pain was blunted.

Vasilia crouched beside him-he hadn't even noticed that she'd been gone-and dropped a bundle of plants in his arms. "Chew that and spit it over wherever it burns," she ordered. "Elfroot. Not the best for burns in this form, but my kit's all gone up in in flames, of course."

"How did you survive?" Corin said hoarsely after doing as she'd asked. He chewed a final piece to soothe his throat enough to speak.

"Ah-he can talk like a big boy. I was in the well." She gave him a brown-toothed grin without any trace of mirth. "I was in the garden on the other side of the village when the lizard landed, so I could make a quick dive. Close thing, though. What's your name?"

"Corin."

"The doomed romantic? I've heard about you. Mooning over that Marri girl." Which wasn't close to the truth at all, but Corin would have thrown himself into the jaws of the dragon rather than explain it to her.

"What happens now?" he asked, trying to drag her away from the subject.

"She hates-hated-you, you know. Well, no, _hate _is too strong a word. She thinks you're a worthless fool," Vasilia continued on happily. "I suppose that's one thing she'll be grateful not to put up with anymore, then."

"Is there somewhere I can go, or...?"

"Really, it might have worked out for the best. You don't want an unhappy wife, trust me on that, boy."

"Do you even care?" Corin said quietly.

"About what? The people dying? No, why would I? They didn't like me and I didn't like them. I'm sure it's very hard for _you, _of course. Losing your parents and all that." She spoke as though Corin had accidentally left the cat flap open and Mittens had run straight under the wheels of a passing carriage. "I am sorry you didn't die with them, though. Living will be difficult now. You'll have to make your own way. Unless you have family?"

Corin shook his head. He did have family, of course, somewhere on the farms...but there was another thing he'd rather die than do.

"Then it's off to Denerim for you, I suppose. Might be someone looking for a shop assistant, or you could join the Templars..." She looked him over. "Or not. Anyway, that's where you're going. I'll drop you off at the main road, and you can just walk down it."

"Where will you be?"

"Me?" She flashed him another one of those not-grins, like a hungry wolf. "I'm going to kill the dragon, of course."


End file.
